{Holiday Gifting} Ideas & Inspiration

Are you gearing up for the Holidays yet? Particularly my favorite Holiday...Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know. I knowwwwwwwwwww. Christmas before Thanksgiving is so annoying. Believe me, I know. 

Buttttttt I have been sick and relatively useless all week, so I have been pinning my brains out. 

There are a few different categories of people I will be gifting to this year and obviously each category will receive different gifts...


Gifts for Babies and Kids:

The Lap/Crib/Floor Quilt that I developed for my Beginning Quilt Class would make a great and easier-than-you'd-think gift for kids as a floor or crib quilt. I actually also think that I am going to make this is a lap quilt for my Pop who spends a bit of time everyday in his favorite recliner.

I totally love this idea of simple monogrammed onesies for little ones. Two  of my girlfriends have very adorable little baby girls and I could see maybe monogramming a set of 4 onesies as a gift...

 

(I tried finding link, not available!!!!) 

For friends and family that cook and eat:

I love this apron from the book Sew Liberated

I love making homemade marshmallows with my husband and if we cut them up into little hearts or something I think they would look super cute on top of a cup of cocoa...

(I tried finding link, not available!!!!) 

II would love to make a trio of spice blends for my Dad. Actually, I think we are going to use bigger jars and give him our favorite rib, steak, and chicken blends from everything we cook when he comes to visit ...

Oooo Caramel Sauce

We have a certain family member that LOVES ice cream and LOVES candy, and I had the idea of breaking up his/hers favorite candy pieces and putting them in jars so that they had some handy ice cream toppings. This picture kinda of looks like what I'd do ... 

Ideas for My Girlfriends, Sister, and Cousins:

I really love this Lace-edged Scarf as shown by this great blogger. I don't know that I could actually make this, though. It is on my list, but looks like it would take a bit of time to get just-right.

Making some assortment of these home bodycare treats made by a favorite blogger of mine:

Maybe this Anna Maria Horner Art Student Tote...

Maybe I can make each of them one of my simple Pocketed Purse Organizer ...

 

Then of course there are some ideas for me and my Husband: 

I already made 8 of these AWESOME Lined Drawstring Bags from a favorite blogger of mine, Jeni at In Color Order...

I am also going to make us matching Christmas Stockings using this Anna Maria Horner favorite fabric of mine ...

OK there is my Holiday Present line-up for now. I have a couple other ideas in my head, but I am just not sure what I'll get to. What do you guys have planned???? 

HOLLER!

{Quilt Pattern} Squares on Point

Hiii There,

As I said in my previous post, I will be teaching a few classes at my local sewing shop. The shop has had a ton of requests for quilting classes, and  the owner and other teachers aren't really quilters, so they've asked me to come up with some beginner quilting classes and whip up samples for those classes. 

First things first... I had to pick some fabric. As usual, my obsession with Anna Maria Horner continues. I selected some prints from her Innocent Crush collection, as well as a LouLouthi print. I am not sure where/what that print on the far left below is, I grabbed it from the sew shop. 

Quilt Design:

I wanted something really simple for the newbie quilters. I wanted a design with big squares that went together very simple. Here is what I came up with:

 
Fabric cutting:

And the quilt top comes together ... sooooo easy!!!!

 The only "squaring up" that this quilt needed was a few corners clipped.

Onto the quilting .... 

Although, in retrospect, the quilting pattern was definitely not the easiest because I had to wrangle a lot of the quilt under the machine at once. I am going to have them quilt this pattern instead .... 

Then comes the much dreaded binding of the quilt. I am definitely going to show all of my newbie quilters how to machine stitch the binding, it is so much easier that hand stitching!!

All done!!  I completed the quilt in about 10 hours total, which included a lot of time for writing and editing the pattern for the students, as well as watching the whole last season of Awkward on MTV. My husband says that I tend to zone out like a 3 year old, twirling my hair standing about 1 foot from the TV, so I can safely assume that a solid 2 hours were wasted that way. 

I actually really am in love with the color combo here. I think that beginner quilters really want to get a feel for the process of constructing a quilt, which they will get to here. They will have to do a little bit of cutting, they will piece squares and triangles both, they will spray baste the quilt, they will get experience with straight-line quilting, they will cut and sew binding, and lastly they will attach the binding via machine stitching. 

What do you guys think? Is this a pretty easy beginner quilt? Do you live in New York's Capital Region and want to take this class? E-mail me! 

HOLLER!

{From Scratch Club} Food Swap Recap!

I just got back from another successful and amazing Food Swap hosted by the lovely ladies at the From Scratch Club. It was really great seeing some familiar faces from the previous swap like Deanna of Silly Goose Farms blog.

There were really and truly so many great items to swap for tonight. There were farm fresh eggs, curried lentil soup, yogurt, granola, jams and jellies of all kinds, and so many other homemade goodies it was hard to recount. It is just too bad that I only brought 12 items to swap, because I REALLY wanted those eggs, but sadly, the egg-woman did not want to swap for my caramels.

I will share with you everything that I swapped for...

 (yogurt with an orange glaze)

I hope you enjoyed the brief recap. I am a bit under the weather and am going to take a double-dose of nyquil and pass out for hopefully a full night sleep. 

HOLLER!